Posted on 01/20/2003 7:01:47 AM PST by forsnax5
That enduring metaphor for the randomness of evolution, a blind watchmaker that works to no pattern or design, is being challenged by two European chemists. They say that the watchmaker may have been blind, but was guided and constrained by the changing chemistry of the environment, with many inevitable results.
The metaphor of the blind watchmaker has been famously championed by Richard Dawkins of the University of Oxford. But Robert Williams, also at Oxford, and Joäo José R. Fraústo da Silva of the Technical University of Lisbon in Portugal say that evolution is not strictly random. They claim Earth's chemistry has forced life to evolve along a predictable progression from single-celled organisms to plants and animals.
Williams and da Silva take as their starting point the earliest life forms that consisted of a single compartment, or vesicle, enclosing the cytoplasm that produced polymers such as RNA, DNA and proteins. That cytoplasm was partly dominated by the reducing chemistry of the primitive oceans and atmosphere from which it formed, and has changed little since, says Williams.
As these primitive cells, or prokaryotes, extracted hydrogen from water they released oxygen, making the environment more oxidising. Ammonia became nitrogen gas, metals were released from their sulphides, and non-metal sulphides became sulphates.
These changes forced the prokaryotes to adapt to use the oxidised elements, and they evolved to harness energy by fixing nitrogen, using oxygen, and developing photosynthesis. But these oxidising elements could also damage the reducing chemistry in the cytoplasm.
For protection, there was just one option: isolate the elements within internal compartments, says Williams. And that gave rise to eukaryotes - single-celled organisms with a nucleus and other organelles.
Harold Morowitz, an expert on the thermodynamics of living systems at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, says these ideas are very exciting. "It's part of a quiet paradigm revolution going on in biology, in which the radical randomness of Darwinism is being replaced by a much more scientific law-regulated emergence of life."
According to Williams and da Silva, eukaryotes also had to evolve a way to communicate between their various organelles. The surrounding raw materials dictated how this could be done. Calcium ions would have routinely leaked into cells, precipitating DNA by binding to it. So cells responded by pumping the ions out again.
Eukaryotes evolved to use this calcium flow to send messages across internal and external membranes. Similarly, sodium ions formerly expelled as poisonous became the basis of communication in nerve cells.
Life continued to react to Earth's oxidised environment. Hydrogen peroxide gave rise to lignin - an oxygen-rich polymer that is the chief constituent of wood. And eukaryotes used copper oxidised from copper sulphides to cross-link proteins such as collagen and chitin, which help hold nerve and muscle cells in place. Such evolution of materials suitable for multicellular structures paved the way for plants and animals.
Not everyone is convinced. Evolutionary biologist David Deamer of the University of California, Santa Cruz, says the claim that evolution followed an inevitable progression should be qualified: "The inevitability depends on the origin of life and oxygenic photosynthesis."
He agrees that life arose in vesicles, but says that oxidative chemistry cannot explain everything from prokaryotes to humans.
Williams admits their theory has limitations. For instance, he agrees that Dawkins's argument is correct in that chance events drive the development of species. But he does not believe random events drive evolution overall. "Whatever life throws away will become the thing that forces the next step in its development."
However, David Krakauer, an evolutionary theorist at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico, says Williams and da Silva have simply listed the chemical processes that coincided with each evolutionary transition, which does not prove that the chemistry caused the transitions. But Williams says that the environmental changes had to come first, because they occur faster than changes in biological systems.
Not at this rate. It seems pretty much played out already.
You refusal to be relavant to topic makes your argument worthless.
Seems you forget what you yourself posted! (of course you could have reread it if you had forgotten it but why waste time, better to just insult the opponent and avoid having to go into details):
A: The creature is blind. This has obvious disadvantages as it cannot see predators approaching, and has to rely on sound, smell etc.
B: A random mutation has given this creature a patch of light-sensitive cells (not a problem - see below).
That is exactly what was addressed in Behe's statements in Post# 62 . While your reductionist comment further down is much better than the nonsense Darwin wrote it still misses quite a bit:
Well, your entire body is covered with light-sensitive cells. Your skin can detect heat radiation, can it not? What is this radiation? Infra-red light! It is easy to see how small mutations could lead infra-red sensitive cells to become more sensitive to shorter wavelengths of light, ie. "visible" light. Also, photons of certain wavelengths are absorbed by certain pigments/chemicals, affecting the chemistry of the cell in a manner that the brain may detect.
For one thing, I have never seen the sun with my skin. Doubt anyone else has either. It takes a lot to 'see the light' as Behe shows:
What is needed to make a light sensitive spot? What happens when a photon of light impinges on the retina? When a photon first hits the retina, it interacts with a small organic molecule called II-cis-retinal. The shape of retinal is rather bent, but when retinal interacts with the photon, it straightens out, isomerizing into trans-retinal. This is the signal that sets in motion a whole cascade of events resulting in vision. When retinal changes shape, it forces a change in the shape of the protein rhodopsin, which is bound to it. Now part of the transducin complex dissociates and interacts with a protein called phosphodiesterase, When that happens, the phosphodiesterase acquires the ability chemically to cut a small organic molecule called cyclic-GMP, turning it into 5'-GMP. There is a lot of cyclic-GMP in the cell, and some of it sticks to another protein called an ion channel. Normally the ion channel allows sodium ions into the cell. When the concentration of cyclic-GMP decreases because of the action of the phosphodiesterase, however, the cyclic-GMP bound to the ion channel eventually falls off, causing a change in shape that shuts the channel. As a result, sodium ions can no longer enter the cell, the concentration of sodium in the cell decreases, and the voltage accross the cell membrane changes. That in turn causes a wave of electrical polarization to be sent down the optic nerve to the brain. And when interpreted by the brain, that is vision.
So my post was completely 'on subject'. It was you who did not want to discuss the subject because you were willfully ignoring evidence showing your statements to be false, and you knew it. Without the foundation, the house cannot stand. Without the foundation of the light sensitive cells:
I was discussing how complex eyes could evolve from simple light-sensitive cells.
You would have nothing to work with. Now what all the above has to with the development of the eye is pretty obvious. You need numerous steps to get there and you do not get sight until all the steps have taken place. Now since we know that a mutation which does not provide a large advantage will not spread through the population and die shortly after its appearance, this makes the evolution of the eye-spot impossible.
You also have quite a few problems even after that. To give you an idea of how complex is the sight system, one third of our brains is dedicated just to seeing. However, the place where the rubber meets the road and evolution can never explain is:
Since the “language” of the nervous system is electric signals, each of the many types of receptor cells must convert, or transduce, its sensory input into an electric signal.
From: Sensory Transduction
So what needs to happen here is that information in protein form has to be translated into electrical signals. Now, it's pretty hard for humans to translate from one language even to another fairly similar one. Imagine how difficult it is to translate from protein to electricity! Guess evolution sent all these eye parts to langauge school!
Sorry I was so hard on the 'irrelevant' point you just said you had looked over again. Saw this after I made the response.
Nice rhetoric, but it seems to me that if all the parts are false, the theory is false. Most of evolutionary theory has been disproven, convincingly, by science. That is why evolutionists are totally unwilling to state exactly the theory which shows how we got from a bacteria to a human being.
You are kidding? (I hope).
We can measure directly continental drift directly. Look: here
A fool and his money are soon parted; a creationist and his ignorance only rarely.
Your argument is basically that you can't argue away evolution. I'm not interested in arguing it away. It's a theory or rather a huge collection of hypotheticals that are grouped to a larger theory. Regardless of belief, I have to look at evidence myself - which is why Catholics here largely detest me. Because given the evidence and the popular story, if the evidence routes the popular story, I'll take the evidence all week long and 10 times on Saturday.
As an example, I'll give you the notion that Peter spent 25 years in Rome preaching primarily to israelites and wrote his 1st epistle there. Paul cleans this argument's clock with two statements - one that by the time Pete should have been in Rome preaching for 14 years, the Jews had only heard rumors of Christ - nothing solid - they in fact invited Paul to come fill them in. And two, at the time when Mark was assisting Peter in writing his first epistle, Paul was writing a letter to Timothy in Ephesus and bidding him to go gather up Mark and bring him to Rome. I'll let you look at a map for the distance between Rome and Ephesus - it's in another country. One doesn't much need Occam's Razor here. But it can be employed. And I don't mind blowing up sacred cows by employing facts. The point isn't to merely find one to blow up, it's to find the facts and if the cow get's in the way of the facts, it's a casualty.
Where there's a genuine controversy, as say currently there is in the evolution of birds, it's solved not by polemic, but by collecting more data. For various reasons I was a proponent in the minority view (as an enthusiastic amateur, not a researcher) that birds did not descend from dinosaurs. What has changed my mind is not the arguments of Feduccia on the one hand or Ostrom on the other, but the recent fossil discoveries in China.
What get's me is the fact that evolution is theory. It is not fact. But it is treated like fact. Unless it can be proven sound, the field is open to competing theories. The one which fits the facts, can be tested, etc. must be preimmenent. My faith doesn't hinge on the creation story. But as my faith in scripture has been proven, I have faith in the creation story. That isn't the same as saying I set out to prove it true. That is impossible. I didn't buy Evolution in elementary school. I didn't buy it in middle school. And I didn't buy it in High school. Too many holes and inconsistancies. And it sounded like charlatanism.
An objection to an existing theory carries with it a responsibility to be totally familiar with the existing body of data, and a willingness to collect new data which may resolve the controversy. In general, this can't be done in front of a computer terminal.
True. Computer's may be employed; but armchair soldiers don't fire weapons till the fort is overrun. Pretty well sums up the situation in the sciences till recent times. Enough people unconvinced of evolution are flooding into the field now that it is upsetting evolutionists. Evolutionsists largely are elitist snobs in my experience and are largely atheists as well. Not saying all are, just noting my experience. But, there is little difference between the way they approach things and the way traditional archeologists aproach things. Their theories are sacred cows. If they say something happened a certain way, never mind what the facts show, and never mind common sense. What they say is the way it will be portrayed come hell or high water and no matter how wrong they can be shown to be.
A good example of this is the instance in which a 22nd dynasty Pharaoh died and was enterred. His tomb was later modified and cut into to make room for a tomb constructed for a 21st dynasty Pharaoh when he later died. Now, this isn't even an arguable thing. One can go to the tombs where they are adjoined and see where the newer tomb was constructed to cut into the older. But the happenstance is that the 21st dynasty ruler died last. Now because it was theorized that the rulers followed one another, the sacred cow stands for those who created it. And they stubbornly refuse to look at or consider the evidence standing against their theory. That is not science; but it is common practice in the community.
Scientific revolutionaries, like Einstein, for example, were able to accomplish their work largely because they were great physicists who knew the existing theories and experimental results and were able to reconcile their new ideas with what was already known. Very few creationists, in my experience, know a substantial amount of descriptive biology or geology; and without that, current ideas about the age of the earth or the lineage of its current life cannot be overturned. (And I'd argue that if you knew the observational work, you wouldn't be creationists or whatever anyway).
Einstein relied not on what was established; but, what was proven. Or did you not realize that formulae require extensive proofs before agreed to. The reason the quadratic equation is used in Math is because it is proven to work. It is testable. If einstein's theories were not proveable, they would remain theory. Einstein didn't say 'well, so and so said x so y must then be true.' No, he said ' so and so proved x, so y must then be true.' There is a difference. And that's why I enjoy math and physics so much. I can not only observe that something works when employed either in the software I write, the designs I build, or in whatever other way it is implemented.
The biggest sticking point I had early on was the realization that there is too much water on this planet. There is not enough land mass to displace what exists, yet, at one point, portions of land that are now 1900 feet below ice and sea level were once above sea level. The evidence is there for it. So where did the excess water and glacial ice come from. An Asteroid large enough to account for it would destroy this planet. There is no evidence of such an asteroid striking, nor is there a landscape existing that demonstrates a massive number of smaller strikes capable of depositing the excess water. Anywhere you look, there is no explanation of this that floats (pardon the pun) until you start looking at the fact that there is water trapped beneath the continents that has double the saline content of sea water. Not a hypothesis, Drilling bears it out. And it was found out by accident. We look and see huge forests burried 1900 feet below sea level and everyone clams up. And when we find man made structures 80 feet below sea level in Japan, the scientific community goes bonkers. Not the guys recording the evidence, the sacred cow makers who don't like what they hear no matter the facts.
So my approach is predictable. If the makers of sacred cows get in an uproar over facts because they don't like them, can't explain the observable and won't address the observable in many circumstances, it's just like news, you look for alternate sources that will deal with facts. If you go to a shop knowing you're low on brake fluid and they tell you your brakes don't work because the pads are bad, though they look brand new, if you have any brains at all, you look for a shop that isn't trying to con you. when science stops trying to con me on the basis that they don't like my religion or religion I won't be any more open to what they have to say. I don't judge based on the messenger; but based on the message. If your story don't match the facts, then tell it walkin. I don't care if you're Christian, Atheist, Conservative, Liberal, male or female. Makes no difference. If you're full of it, don't let the door hit you in the butt on the way out. We spend the majority of our lives gathering and acting on information. I've got little use for garbage information.
I'll leave you to consider something as a further example - T-Rex. Dual theories say that he could be either warm blooded or cold blooded. Because he was a large lizard and God only knows what assumptions, the prevailing theory became that dinosaurs were cold blooded and therefore T-Rex was a cold blooded animal. When a percieved radical challenged that and did so with evidence that is not disputeable, that the t-rex moves at a warm blooded pace and therefore must be warm blooded, how long do you think it took to convince science that it was wrong because it liked it's theories more than what the observeable could prove. He's still looked at as somewhat of a radical nut. This isn't an exception to the rule. And again, this is the kind of thing that gives me little confidence in these people. But guys like you who can actually carry on a civil conversation, regardless of where you stand, I can respect.
Your plate mass goes down so far and it melts. It is pushed very hard, yes. Its movement is resisted by friction with overlying layers, its own viscosity, and the sluggishness of the magma beneath. That doesn't mean it grinds to a halt. You see, the pressures keep building behind it. You wander near the answer here:
But, one must ultimately answer the one question that drives it all, where does the force come from that causes movement and what is that applied force across the volume?
What pumps new energy in all the time? It's called nuclear fission. Thus the earth can't cool off, for now. It still has uranium and other heavy elements in the core. The continents continue to drift like scum on hot cocoa and will for some time to come.
In answering that you need also to account for the heat generated from said force and show that said force can account for the 90 or near 90 degree subduction said to occur at the mid-oceanic ridge.
The oceanic ridges are the opposite of subduction zones. They're where new plate is created, spreading outward from undersea volcanic seamounts. You're just kind of spewing stuff you make up as you go along here, aren't you? You don't know beans about geology.
But come on, let's cut to the chase -- why don't you come right out and tell us all that you think the Earth is no more than 6000 years old, and *that's* why you have to argue against Geology so strongly (since nearly everything in modern Geology shows such a belief to be pure fantasy)? Not to mention any valid dating method, etc...Hmm, Havoc responded (sort of) to another part of my post, but didn't dare touch this portion.Repeat after me: "I, Havoc, am so out of touch that I truly believe the Earth is a grand total of 6000 years old, never mind the shark teeth (that was just one of God's little practical jokes)..."
So I ask it again. Hello? Anyone home?
[crickets chirping]
Because they do and it does, even though this is news to you...
The reason I point this out is because it's amazing how many of the most fundamental things in Geology you're not aware of. Note: In order to have a chance in hell of coming up with a workable "new" theory, you're going to have to have a very good knowledge of what evidence has already been discovered. Otherwise, odds are astronomical that your "new" theory is going to fail to explain (i.e., be contradicted by) scads of known facts.
So when you say stuff like, "oh, the continents are still moving? I didn't know that.", it's like someone trying to overturn conventional Physics with a new theory who keeps saying, "what's this 'momentum' thing you're talking about, and what are 'orbits'?"
while I've been suggesting crust and continent are independant.
You can suggest anything you like, but there's not a shred of evidence for it. On the contrary, there is a mountain (no pun intended) of evidence that the continents move with the crust. And you'd *know* that if you bothered to *learn* anything about Geology before you ludicrously attempted to overturn and revolutionize it, Mr. Quixote.
Prove plate boundaries and prove plates are moving and you will have your proof.
Already done, probably before you were born.
Or did you not know that the boundaries drawn for proposed plates are not based on proven boundaries but assumed.
You're hallucinating again. Or making the mistake of believing creationist nutbars who are trying to make a living selling books and lectures to the gullible.
That word comes up an awful lot in your world "assumed".
No, actually, *you're* the one who keeps using it.
For one thing, I have never seen the sun with my skin.
You're not too good on seeing someone's point, either.
If you're not going to try to hold up your end of the conversation, why bother? And why should we bother with you if you're either unable or unwilling to listen?
Welcome to the club. The line forms to the rear!
;-)
Amazing claim, let's see if you can substantiate it:
In fact it is totally unbelievable that anyone would call evolution science in this day and age.
You mean, other than those countless thousands of scientists who work with it and research it all the time?
You make a lot of unsupported claims, son, let's see if you know how to support them:
1. The disproof of Darwin's racist claim that the brachyocephalic index showed what races were superior and which were inferior.
Troll Challenge #1: I've already challenged you to document this ad hominem claim. I already pointed out it was contrary to all I've read that Darwin has written about race (i.e., he considered them intellectual and moral equals; an amazingly fair-minded belief for his era.) You failed to even attempt document it. Do so now -- QUOTE Darwin and cite the source.
Troll Challenge #2: Document that whatever Darwin may have actually said on the matter has been "disproven".
In short, you must quote/cite an actual science source which AGREES WITH YOUR CONCLUSION in each case and FLAT OUT SAYS SO. Not just "could be used to argue that conclusion" if you squint at it just right, you must actually find where science SAYS WHAT YOU SAY IT DOES, with no need for "interpretation" or "line of reasoning" on your part.
You say that "Science is very much aware that evolution is total nonsense", so all you have to do is *quote* science actually SAYING the things you say it does. Should be easy -- if you're not a lying swine.
While some may dismiss this as a minutae, it is a strong refutation of evolution because it shows that there has been no 'evolution' in the human species and according to evolutionists evolution is always going on.
Troll Challenge #3: Over what timespan has your alleged "no change" occurred?
Troll Challenge #4: Document (*see above*) that it hasn't.
Troll Challenge #5: Document (*ditto*) that "according to evolutionists" there would *have* be a change of the specified type over the specified time period if evolution were true.
2. Mendelian genetics showed that the transfer of new traits was very difficult if not impossible.
Troll Challenge #6: Document this insane claim. And since you have a short memory, I will again point out that you must DOCUMENT this by citing an actual scientific source which declares it to be "very difficult if not impossible" -- your own babbling, hand-waving arguments don't count. You're not allowed to try to prove your amazing assertion, you must *document* that *SCIENCE* flat-out says so, since you claimed that it did.
Indeed because a new trait or mutation is not in the gene pool of other individuals, it has an almost impossible chance of survival.
Troll Challenge #7: Document, please. And since I remember your failures in our earlier discussion of genetic drift, I must remind you that 1-in-a-thousand, or even 1-in-a-million, is *NOT* "almost impossible". Nor do your misconceptions bother to address the selection of favorable new traits, which have a far higher success rate.
2a. Mendelian genetics also showed the concept of alleles - duplicate genes in every organism which performed the same function but a bit differently. This allows the adaptation of a species to the environment without the need to wait for a chance mutation to occur. It shows that transformation of organisms is not necessary for survival.
Troll Challenge #8: Explain how the (obvious) fact that organisms can "survive" without evolution in any way supports your thesis that "science keeps refuting evolution". Oh, don't bother -- you can't. You're just being foolishly irrelevant here and even you must realize that.
3. DNA - a Nobel Prize winning discovery - showed the utter complexity of the cells in every organism. It laid to rest forever the concept that just a little mutation could transform an organism or a species.
Troll Challenge #9: Document (again, via quoting an actual scientific source which SPECIFICALLY AGREES with your CONCLUSION here) that you're not just making a wild leap from "it's complicated" to "it's impossible".
Troll Challenge #10: Document where evolutionists have ever said that "*A* little mutation" (i.e., singular) could "transform" an organism or species.
Troll Challenge #11: While you're at it, define "transform" in a way that doesn't make your statement trivially false or tautologically true.
4. Genome Project - showed the utter interrelatedness of every single gene, cell, part of the body.
Troll Challenge #12: Document that twaddle. Make sure your source speaks of the "utter interrelatedness" of "every single gene".
It has shown that it is impossible for any new trait to evolve by chance occurrence (or at random, or without design or whatever you wish to call how evolutionary changes to the genome are supposed to occur according to evolution).
Troll Challenge #13: Document where "it has shown" this. Again, you must find a scientific source which specifically agrees with your *conclusion*, not merely one that you can wave around and say, "this is supporting evidence, my conclusion is therefore inescapable, can't you see that?"
For any change, for any transformation to occur, there would need to be the coevolution of the new trait together with a complete support system to make it work.
Troll Challenge #14: And "science" agrees with you on this point where, exactly? Document it. Make sure it's talking specifically about "ANY change, ANY transformation".
This of course is totally ludicrous, especially in view of 2 and 3 above.
I agree your descriptions are ludicrous.
5. discovery of gene control - showed forever that the arrogant (and moronic) evolutionist theory that 95% of DNA was just there doing nothing except to give proof of evolution was utter bunk.
Troll Challenge #15: Documentation, please.
Science showed that it is that very DNA which evolutionists called 'junk" which is what controls the actions of genes and many other processes in the organism.
Troll Challenge #16: All of it? Document where science "shows" this.
So as you can see, we are very lucky that scientists ignore evolution.
Troll Challenge #17: Document that this is the case. I'll accept a quote from any peer-reviewed publication in an accepted science journal.
Otherwise, biology would still be stuck in the dark Darwinian ages.
Someone's sure in the dark here, but it's not us.
Time for you to document your assertions, or withdraw them. Time for you to demonstrate that you have any idea what in the hell you're talking about when you make claims about what "science" shows.
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